The Political Crisis Of Crimea

Stalin ordered the intentional starvation of Ukraine and killed as many as 7.5 million Ukrainians. Although the Ukraine is considered the “breadbasket” of the Soviet Union where the most productive farms are, the food produced was removed for residents of other parts of the country and Ukrainians were left to starve. The widespread and horrible scale of the starvation led people to eat the dead, and 2500 were convicted of cannibalism. The independence minded people of the Ukraine were starved into submission, pure and simple. Soviet propaganda denied the famine for many years, refusing to admit Stalin’s psychotic willingness to kill people or allow the world to think people in Ukraine could possibly starve. Soviet propaganda also spread into western countries with false messages that the famine was natural and not planned. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian and Ukrainian officials were somewhat more forthcoming, but the issue remains a hot topic between Russia and Ukraine.

It started in 1920 when Ukraine tried to break away from the Soviet Union, but it was unsuccessful because Stalin wouldn’t let them. Stalin then at the end of the 1920s, wanted to shut down Ukraine’s autonomy. He does so by having individuals arrested, sent to prison, and even executed (Sebag, 2008). Ukraine used to be the bread basket of Russia. That was until Stalin and his crew took over and held over ¾ of Ukraine hostage. While he was having people imprisoned and executed, he also ordered the collectivization of agriculture. Most of Ukraine were peasants and farmers. The majority of these people owned a good amount of land, and some even owned livestock. There were people who were against collectivization. These people were called Kulaks, which are rich peasants. Thousands of people were thrown out of their homes and even deported. (Bohdan, 2013)

What is known as the Ukraine Famine was a crisis in which no outside force responded to help the Ukrainians. When Stalin rose to power as the leader of the Soviet Union, one of his first actions was to

Ukraine has been an independent state since 1991 and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the two nations continued to hold close ties. In the past two decades, there have been several significant events affecting the balance of power between the two nations. One of the events was in December 1994 when Ukraine agreed to give up its substantial nuclear arsenal at Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurance. The condition of this agreement being Russia and other signing countries would issue an assurance against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine. Just a few year later Russia also signed the Charter for European Security, the action “reaffirmed the inherent right

When you deprive people of food you take away their power, strength and now you control them now. Before Stalin era, the Ukraine was under the domination of Imperial Czars of Russia ruled for 200 years. In 1917, they collapsed and Vladimir Lenin took over, seizing everything that the Czars controlled. Coming next was four

There has been tons of contentions and conflicts in the second largest country in europe and while the news presents us all these ideas about what going there, the truth, as it always is, is much more complex. The recent turmoil in the Ukraine has brought up a lot of issues remembered in the cold war. Russia Annexing the crimean peninsula from the Ukraine scaring western powers, specifically the United States, into the old policy of Soviet containment and using any means to put negatives towards the “eastern block” preventing the spread of its influence. Although the United States and it NATO/European Union current policy’s towards the eastern block have attempted to contain this strong autocratic style of

Ukraine, once a totalitarian state in the USSR, is now being ravaged by civil war. This war has been fought between Ukrainian Nationalist and Pro-Russian supporters in the Donbass region. This rising unrest can be traced back to the Russian ties that run deep in its Government. This Russian influence is being used by President Putin to incite Rebellion in the eyes of Ukrainians, and it all starts with Ukrainian politics of party groups Svoboda and The Party of Regions

The circumstances prior to the 1930s, led one of the most catastrophic famines in history. By the early 20th century, the Ukraine had been govern by the Russian czars for over 200 years. When the rule of the czars failed in 1917, it was soon after that the Ukraine announced itself an independent republic, with Kiev as its capital. However, only a few months later with the newly formed Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin seeked to regain the Ukraine. This led to several years of fighting, amongst Lenin’s Red Army and Ukrainian troops. By 1921, the Soviet Union had regained

The two countries, Russia and Ukraine, had different reactions towards the armed violence and impeachment of the Ukrainian president. Although the majority of the Ukrainians opposed Viktor’s decision to procrastinate the signing the EU-Ukraine integration agreement, all the ex-presidents accused for its interference with the affairs of Crimean. The former presidents of Ukraine, including Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma described the present crisis as Russia’s political interventions designed to interfere with the internal affairs of Ukraine and its relationship with the European Union (Hanschke 1). The people of Crimea have not been seeking for secession from Ukraine, but their interest is to have extended autonomy and rights to govern the Crimean affairs with minimum involvement of the government of Ukraine. Russia, on the other hand, have dismissed the accusation and stated that it is pursuing the interest of the people of Crimea to join the Federation of Russia. Russia holds that the people of Crimea have the power to decide the future of their territory and Russia will be ready to respect their decision. Study shows that about 90

When a ceasefire was declared in Minsk, Belarus on 1 September, 2015 between Ukraine and Russia, it was not expected to be maintained. Yet, despite the skeptical expectations of politicians and critics alike, it has. The reason why the ceasefire appears to be holding up is complex and has much to do with Ukraine being uniquely situated between the East and the West. In the modern day conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine has been forced to choose between the East and the West through partnerships with either Russia or the EU/NATO in the spheres of defense and economic partnerships. Faced with bipolar forces pulling it in either direction, it is impossible for Ukraine to remain neutral because the global climate does not allow it to choose a grey area. In recent decades, Ukraine has chosen to look West. Both the historical and modern day conflict situate Ukraine as the place where East and West geographically and ideologically overlap. Due to historical relations between the East and West, Ukraine has become a pawn between Russian and Western relations. Increased NATO involvement begins to claim Ukraine as Western, encroaching upon the territory that Russia perceives as its own. Additionally, the Russian annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and its ever present interference in Ukrainian politics asserts Russia’s profound desire and ability to maintain control and influence

The crisis in Ukraine and Crimea’s recent accession to Russia are events that clearly highlight the underlying sources of conflict in global politics. While Russia sees its actions in Crimea as a “reunification” and the respect for the right of self-determination, the West views it as a threat to European security and a violation of territorial integrity. Crimea has been a debatable topic from the time it came under the control of the Russian Empire in 1783 during the reign of Catherine the Great. The justification then was similar to the reasoning being used by Vladimir Putin today. Catherine declared that she was protecting ethnic Russians in the region from the Ottoman Empire, much as Putin is claiming to protect Russians from Ukrainian

The conflict between the Ukraine and Russia is the Ukraine's most long-standing and deadly crisis; since its post-Soviet independence began as a protest against the government dropping plans to forge closer trade ties with the European Union. The conflict between Russia and the Ukraine stems from more than twenty years of weak governance, the government’s inability to promote a coherent executive branch policy, an economy dominated by oligarchs and rife with corruption, heavy reliance on Russia, and distinct differences between Ukraine's population from both Eastern and Western regions in terms of linguistics, religion and ethnicity (Lucas 2009).

This research paper aims to address issues relating primarily to the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Annexation in itself brings forth an array of issues under international law, and the problem this paper looks into is whether the acquisition of the Crimean territory by the Russian Federation was valid in terms of international law, as well as analysing the arguments brought forward by Russia in defence of its actions leading up to the annexation of the Crimean territory. Aspects relating to the use of force principle will be critically discussed, as well as issues relating to infringement of state sovereignty.

In the Ukrainian crisis with Russia, there have been many non-state actors involved since the beginning of the invasion of Crimea. “From the Russian diaspora, non-governmental organizations, paramilitary groups and volunteer militias, there are a diverse range of non-state actors involved in the crisis” (German and Karagiannis, 2016). There has been a large impact in regards to religious groups with the Ukrainian conflict, such as the Russian Orthodox Church being able to rationalize why there was a need to invade Crimea. In Ukraine, a subset church of the Russian Orthodox Church broke off from the Russian Church to play a proactive role in assisting the pro-Ukrainian militias during the conflict. Organized crime and rise of militias have caused uncertainty for the country of Ukraine as the country lacks the ability to stabilize its regions against the crisis from the militias to Russia’s invasion.

The political relations between Ukraine and Russia as the two independent subjects of international relations were established in 1991 after the eighth December of the same year signed the Belavezha agreement between Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, which marked the end of the existence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as " subject of international law and geopolitical reality "and the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States. From that moment we can talk about the beginning of the existence of full political relations between Russia and Ukraine.